What was the situation for that group/institution before Gorbachev became Premier?
At the beginning of the 20th century, during the Tsarist years, educational opportunites were increasing, albeit slowly. After the Bolshevik revolution, the communists came into power; they believed in increasing literacy and educational opportunity. The communists felt that educating the masses could destroy the divisons in social classes. In 1919, the Eight Pary Congress hoped to increase education among the masses, and educate the populace in their native languages, separate the church from the school, and provide technical education to improve economic life, through the use of “unified labor school[s].” Lenin wanted the soviet children to be knowledgeebale and educated. Education became state controlled. Students would go to school; 8-13 would go to one school, and 14-17 to another; additionally, illiterate people under 50 years of age would have to learn how to read and write. Overall, the main goal of education in the USSR was to develop communists.
Although the educational plans seemed great, there was many problems through the 1920s. In 1930, the decree, “On universal Compulsory Elementary Education” was enacted, and education was to be made available to everyone. Education became more strict: teachers had more power and there was a unified curriculum. Between 1956-1957, around 50 million people in Russia attended Soviet schools, univseritsites, and vocational schools.
By 1960, some 98.5% of Soviets were literate. In 1958, 94,000 Soviet engineers graduated; only 35,000 engineers graduated in the US school system. However, the USSR still only had 7% of the population able to attend higher educational school (the US had 15% attendance). The Soviets had many students attending elementary school, but few went on to secondary and higher levels of education, in comparision to the US.
After 1956, the school system began to change, in efforts to improve Soviet higher education. Boarding Schools were built, and degrees became more rigorous. By 1958, it was discovered that peasant children rarely received higher education, while the higher class children did; Khruschev called this “shameful.” Reforms were made, such as allowing workers to reviece technical education while working, and moving some higher educational schools to the countryside.Khruschev also made the school sytem 11 years.
The Soviet Union created more boarding schools in the 1960s, including the Novosibrirsk Internat, focused on science, math, and research. (The US even modelled schools after these scientific schools in the USSR). The USSR focused on science, math, and engineering in their school system.
In the 1970s, Brezhnev wanted the Soviet school system to spread to other communist countries; the school system was still built on creating communist men and women. Brezhnev undid several of Khruschev’s reforms, including changing the school sytem back to 10 years. Brezhnev called for the school system to ensure studnets would be prepared to work hard aswell. Polytechnical (labor) education was increased throughout the 1970s.
In 1972, it was required that students would be taken to visit factoreies, farms, and other enterpreises, so they would become familiar with their future work locations. In 1977, polytechnical education was to be strongly incorporated into the school sytem; many graduating students were ill prepared for work; a polytechnical education would prevent that in the future.
In 1984, schools were to increase specific labor training. At the start of the 1980s, the USSR had nearly achieved universal education for secondary students. Unfortunately, the Soveit educational systems were still imperfect; many curriculums remained the same every year, even when changes were necessary. Additionally, as the Soviets pushed for the education of all students, the level of education was lowered, in order for everyone to be successful. Students realized they didn’t need to work to hard, as grades were inflated; this caused students to graduate with little knowledge, and to be poor workers in the labor force. In 1984, a plan was created where students would start education at the age of 6, textbooks would be reformed/revised, all students would learn Russian, and to improve the teaching abilities of teachers, to improve education, starting in 1986. This was known as “The Basic Guidelines for Reform in the General Educaiton and Vocational Shcools. ”
Documents:
"The Early Revolutionary Years. The communists were fully conscious of the importance of education. The program adopted by the Eighth Party Congress in 1919 called for "the transformation of the school system from a weapon of bourgeois class rule into a weapon for the complete abolition of the division of society into classes, into a weapon of the communist rebirth of society." The party program went on to define the principles governing the new, communist "unified labor school" ( Yedinaya Trudovaya Shkola): instruction in native languages, co-education, separation of school and church, and an indissoluble linking of education with economic life through technical education.
The communists set out to remodel the R. school system in line with Lenin's definition of the functions of Soviet education: "To give to youth the fundamentals of knowledge and the capacity to form communist opinions for themselves; to make them educated people." ( Works, 4th Ed., Vol. 31, pp. 270). Among the, urgent tasks, Lenin emphasized the need to spread education among the workers and peasants, to raise the educational level of backward nationalities and to introduce general compulsory school attendance, first at the primary and then at the secondary level. The entire school system was to be re-modelled along communist lines. In practice, Lenin defined communist education as comprising "basic scientific knowledge of born nature and society, the world outlook of scientific materialism, communist morality, physical exercise for good health, close links between study and productive labor." Of all the branches of the system, the elementary schools seemed to Lenin the most important as molders of communist men and women." (Florinsky) "In 1984, a year before Gorbachev came to power, the Central Committee of the Communist Party approved a new education law titled "The Basic Guidelines for Reform in the General Education and Vocational Schools." The "Guidelines" called for three major changes in the structure of the school system described in chapter 3. First, children would start school at age six, rather than seven, and would be required to complete eleven, rather than ten, years of general education. Primary school would comprise grades one through four; incomplete secondary, grades five through nine; complete secondary, grades ten and eleven. Second, the vocational schools would be consolidated into a single, relatively new institution called a secondary vocational--technical school. The length of study in this school for ninth-grade graduates of the general education school would be three years; for eleventh-grade graduates, one year. Third, in order to receive a secondary school diploma, all students--even those in the general education school--had to acquire a skill proficiency in some common occupation. Reminiscent of the 1964 Khrushchev educational reform, this law mandated for all young people in the Soviet Union a universal eleven-year general education program combined with universal vocational training. The new plans called not only for doubling the amount of time devoted to labor education in the general education school, but doubling as well the enrollment in vocational schools and technicums. " (Long, Long)
(USSR Education)
How did that group/institution interpret the application of those policies to it?
Perestroika: In 1986, Gorbachev implemented perestroika, or “resturcutring” of Russia, including education. The reforms were based on reversiving unfavorable trends in economics and demographics related to ecuation. Many educators wanted the reforms to take place, as they would make education more scholastic, and add in education in the humanity subjects, in addition to the sciences that had dominated soviet education for years. Schools were to have more choice in how they taught; the avilities of each student were to be focused on. Vocational training was no longer compulsory. Schools were to be more open, diversified, human, decentralized, and even democratized. The people were to be in control of education, not the state.
The higher education was to be reformed through the improvement of quality, through raising standards, and removing the weaker students form the educational programs. New admission criteria were to be implemented. More indivuidulaised curricula were also to be implemented. Education would further emphasize scientific research. Every 5 years, graduates would have to be recertified. Overall, the reofrms were to make better use of resources.
The reforms were supported by much of the educational system in the USSR. Overall, the people of the USSR wanted education to improve, and many wanted humanities to be taught. As a result, the reforms were often welcomed.
Several important Soviet teachers, including Amonashvili supported Gorbachev so much that they additionally called out the problems that soviet education had faced in the past years, and supported Gorbacehv. School would be for the children, and not only for the economy.
However, some felt that Soviet education was ruined; the sudden restructuring would destroy how Russian education had been for 70 years. Some teachers didn’t know how to teach, and what to teach in terms of ethics – continue building the communist man or not.
Overall, the USSR education system knew Gorbachev’s reforms were necessary, and interpreted them as so, and they welcomed them. People enjoyed learning about human rights and other humanity subjects.
Documents:
"As Gorbachev gradually expanded the emphasis of perestroika from exclusive focus on the economy to encompass political and social reform, the inadequacies of the "Basic Guidelines" for the new age of perestroika became increasingly evident to party leaders. In 1987 E. K. Ligachev, at the time second in command to Gorbachev, took the lead in blasting the schools, claiming that "the desire of the teacher to stand over a student, to control his every step is the scourge of our school." In 1988 Shalva Amonashvili, a leading Soviet teacher- innovator during the 1980s, seconded Ligachev's harsh judgment of teachers: "For 60 years all we did was fulfill and execute directives. Our teachers are brilliant executors, the likes of whom we won't find anywhere else in the world. For in their heads sits an inspector who, though he may never come to the teacher's classes, they always bear in mind." (Long, Long)
"While Soviet educators recognized that there was no panacea for overcoming the problems plaguing their schools, they echoed in speeches, articles, and books Gorbachev's firm conviction that "dialogue rather than monologue" was the "essential element in a truly creative process of education and upbringing of young people." This basic idea with all its many ramifications was widely publicized after Iagodin appointed Dneprov in 1988 to organize like-minded reformers into a cohesive, working group titled VNIK-shkola (Temporary Scientific Research Collective on the Schools), a group whose principles were summarized and promulgated, primarily by Dneprov, in a series of position papers published by the editor of the Teacher Gazette (Uchitel'skaia gazeta), Vladimir F. Matveev. In short order, the VNIK-shkola group blossomed into the vanguard of a radical reform movement called the "pedagogy of cooperation," consisting of reformers in the state educational bureaucracy and of prominent teacher-innovators such as Amonashvili, Volkov, Ivanov, El'in, Kurkin, Lytsenkova, Nikitina, Nikitin, Shatalov, and Shchetinin. The main thrust of the movement was to humanize the teaching-learning process. Supporters of the movement demanded first of all the dismantlement of the old Soviet system-- one, in their judgment, so excessively centralized, authoritarian, bureaucratic, and impersonal that it totally ignored the needs and interests of students, teachers, parents, and the community at large. The second order of business was to replace this system with a Lincolnesque system "of the people, by the people, for the people." In short, control of education should be returned to the people." (Long, Long)
How did the Soviet state apply those policies to that group/institution, and what were the effects?
Gorbachev laid out his reforms for education with perestroika. The reforms were in part left to the teachers – as the reforms called for more innovative teaching and more individualized teaching. However, it also fell to Gennadii Iagodin and Eduard Dneprov, leaders in the soviet education system to ensure the reforms were carried out. Iagodin became the USSR State Committee for Public Education minister in 1989. Groups such as “pedagogy for cooperation” formed; they supported Gorbachev’s reforms.
Several organizations formed that helped to spread reforming ideas. The group known as, VNIK-shkola (Temporary Scientific Research Collective on the Schools), had their ideas published in the Teacher's Gazzette; they were a radical reform group. They called for the dismantling of the Soviet education system.
The reforms were slow; after teaching one way for 70 years, reform can be difficult. However, some teachers carried out radical reforms, and the state could do little to stop them, as it was not focused on education. After 1988, the USSR focused on reforms concerning economics, and less on implementing the educational reforms. However, reforms carried out by the teachers brought change. Education became for the people and by the people. The old education system was dismantled.
Documents: "The February 1988 party plenum painted with broad strokes the general outline of the path that schools were to follow under Gorbachev and, with some notable exceptions, to a considerable extent under Yeltsin as well. Schools were to reflect trends in society at large--trends that were sparked and nurtured by Gorbachev himself and solidified by Yeltsin. The Soviet/Russian school under Gorbachev and Yeltsin was, in tandem with society, to become more open, more humane, more diversified, more decentralized, and more democratized. It was left to a number of outstanding "teacher-innovators" and two dynamic state educational leaders to take a small brush and fill in the details of the emerging new portrait of the Soviet/Russian school. The two state educational leaders were Gennadii Iagodin and Eduard Dneprov. Iagodin was the minister of the USSR State Committee for Public Education, a committee formed on 8 March 1989." (Long, Long) "there can be no doubt that Gorbachev very much wanted his fellow citizens to think more independently, creatively, and critically. Such people were essential if the socioeconomic life of the country were to improve. Gorbachev insisted that everybody "must learn the habit of criticism, the habit of comradely polemic." Iagodin agreed. "We must learn," he said, "to listen to others, to understand opposing views. This is the task of education." It was not and is not today an easy task.
Teaching children to think for themselves is difficult to do in any country, but in the Soviet Union it was doubly difficult because a long tradition--extending back to the early tsars--of ingrained anti-intellectualism had to be combated. Prior to Gorbachev's ascension to power, the most fundamental objective of the school's upbringing program was to teach children not to think for themselves, but to acquiesce in letting the state do this job for them. In school the child was to learn that there was only one correct answer for every question of importance to the state: socialism is noble, capitalism is wicked; atheism is good, religion is bad. To eliminate any doubt in the minds of students about what the conclusion should be, Soviet teachers were instructed to word their questions so that the question itself prompted the desired response: "The church claims that it always stood for the defense of the interests of its country and people. Prove that this is not so.'... A Soviet newspaper editor summed up bluntly the challenge facing educators under Gorbachev in promoting independent thinking among students and teachers alike: "When you have been told all your life you are a pig, you don't suddenly start thinking for yourself just because somebody orders you to do so."' (Long, Long)
What was the significance of Gorbachev’s reforms as it pertained to that group/institution?
Education would be returned to the people; it would be less state run. The USSR educational system had been run by the state for decades, and education had not been based on individuals, but on the student body overall. With the reforms, education would be individualized; it would be focused on each student. The students would be taught to think for themselves; free thought would come to Russia. There would no longer be one right answer. Teachers would no longer have to teach a set curriculum, but would have choice in what they taught and how they taught.
The school system that had rigidly followed Marxist-Leninist policy no longer had to. The syllabuses for classes would change, along with textbooks. The Humanities, and even religion, could be taught. Children were also to learn to think for themselves; ideas in opposition to communism could be taught. There was democratization in it, and openness, as called for in other parts of soviet soviety through Gorbachev’s Glasnost and democratizatsiya.
documents: "The old rigidities of Marxism-Leninism are no longer official doctrine, and the individual is free to search for meaning in capitalism, nationalism, consumerism and a variety of other "isms". In ideals, as in goods, the free market reigns. While this is exhilarating, it is also profoundly confusing for many people. This feeling of confusion is felt especially acutely in the educational system, which is experiencing many difficulties in making the transition to the post-communist era. It has, for example, taken several years to replace the old ideology-laden textbooks with new ones, approved by a panel of Russian scholars. Syllabuses have changed accordingly and now feature such subjects as civil rights, environmental studies and basic market economics. In addition, students are now encouraged to be generally more inquisitive and questioning in their approach to learning. " (Nikandrov)
Bibliography:
Evans, Alfred B.. "Recent Assessments of Social Organizations in Russia." Demokratizatsiya 10.3 (2002): 322. QuestiaSchool. Web. 2 Mar. 2014.
Evered, Lisa J., and Sofya Nayer. "Novosibirsk's school for the gifted ‐ changing emphases in the new Russia." Roeper Review 23.1 (2000): 22-24. QuestiaSchool. Web. 1 Mar. 2014.
Florinsky, Michael. "EDUCATION. Kievan and Muscovite Russia." McGraw-Hill Encyclopedia of Russia and the Soviet Union. 1st ed. 1961. QuestiaSchool. Web. 2 Mar. 2014.
Nikandrov, Nikolai D.. "Russian education after perestroika: The search for new values." International Review of Education 41.1-2 (1995): 47-57. JSTOR. Web. 2 Mar. 2014.
Reuters. "SOVIET REVAMPING SCHOOL SYSTEM." The New York Times 5 Jan. 1984: n. pag. The New York Times. Web. 2 Mar. 2014.
Tarr, Zoltan, and Anthony Jones. "Education and Society in the New Russia.." Contemporary Sociology 25.4 (1996): 527. JSTOR. Web. 2 Mar. 2014.
Waller, Michael, and Martin Mccauley. "The Soviet Union after Brezhnev.." International Affairs (Royal Institute of International Affairs 1944-) 60.3 (1984): 501. QuestiaSchool. Web. 2 Mar. 2014.
What was the situation for that group/institution before Gorbachev became Premier?
At the beginning of the 20th century, during the Tsarist years, educational opportunites were increasing, albeit slowly. After the Bolshevik revolution, the communists came into power; they believed in increasing literacy and educational opportunity. The communists felt that educating the masses could destroy the divisons in social classes. In 1919, the Eight Pary Congress hoped to increase education among the masses, and educate the populace in their native languages, separate the church from the school, and provide technical education to improve economic life, through the use of “unified labor school[s].” Lenin wanted the soviet children to be knowledgeebale and educated. Education became state controlled. Students would go to school; 8-13 would go to one school, and 14-17 to another; additionally, illiterate people under 50 years of age would have to learn how to read and write. Overall, the main goal of education in the USSR was to develop communists.
Although the educational plans seemed great, there was many problems through the 1920s. In 1930, the decree, “On universal Compulsory Elementary Education” was enacted, and education was to be made available to everyone. Education became more strict: teachers had more power and there was a unified curriculum. Between 1956-1957, around 50 million people in Russia attended Soviet schools, univseritsites, and vocational schools.
By 1960, some 98.5% of Soviets were literate. In 1958, 94,000 Soviet engineers graduated; only 35,000 engineers graduated in the US school system. However, the USSR still only had 7% of the population able to attend higher educational school (the US had 15% attendance). The Soviets had many students attending elementary school, but few went on to secondary and higher levels of education, in comparision to the US.
After 1956, the school system began to change, in efforts to improve Soviet higher education. Boarding Schools were built, and degrees became more rigorous. By 1958, it was discovered that peasant children rarely received higher education, while the higher class children did; Khruschev called this “shameful.” Reforms were made, such as allowing workers to reviece technical education while working, and moving some higher educational schools to the countryside.Khruschev also made the school sytem 11 years.
The Soviet Union created more boarding schools in the 1960s, including the Novosibrirsk Internat, focused on science, math, and research. (The US even modelled schools after these scientific schools in the USSR). The USSR focused on science, math, and engineering in their school system.
In the 1970s, Brezhnev wanted the Soviet school system to spread to other communist countries; the school system was still built on creating communist men and women. Brezhnev undid several of Khruschev’s reforms, including changing the school sytem back to 10 years. Brezhnev called for the school system to ensure studnets would be prepared to work hard aswell. Polytechnical (labor) education was increased throughout the 1970s.
In 1972, it was required that students would be taken to visit factoreies, farms, and other enterpreises, so they would become familiar with their future work locations. In 1977, polytechnical education was to be strongly incorporated into the school sytem; many graduating students were ill prepared for work; a polytechnical education would prevent that in the future.
In 1984, schools were to increase specific labor training. At the start of the 1980s, the USSR had nearly achieved universal education for secondary students. Unfortunately, the Soveit educational systems were still imperfect; many curriculums remained the same every year, even when changes were necessary. Additionally, as the Soviets pushed for the education of all students, the level of education was lowered, in order for everyone to be successful. Students realized they didn’t need to work to hard, as grades were inflated; this caused students to graduate with little knowledge, and to be poor workers in the labor force. In 1984, a plan was created where students would start education at the age of 6, textbooks would be reformed/revised, all students would learn Russian, and to improve the teaching abilities of teachers, to improve education, starting in 1986. This was known as “The Basic Guidelines for Reform in the General Educaiton and Vocational Shcools. ”
Documents:
"The Early Revolutionary Years. The communists were fully conscious of the importance of education. The program adopted by the Eighth Party Congress in 1919 called for "the transformation of the school system from a weapon of bourgeois class rule into a weapon for the complete abolition of the division of society into classes, into a weapon of the communist rebirth of society." The party program went on to define the principles governing the new, communist "unified labor school" ( Yedinaya Trudovaya Shkola): instruction in native languages, co-education, separation of school and church, and an indissoluble linking of education with economic life through technical education.
The communists set out to remodel the R. school system in line with Lenin's definition of the functions of Soviet education: "To give to youth the fundamentals of knowledge and the capacity to form communist opinions for themselves; to make them educated people." ( Works, 4th Ed., Vol. 31, pp. 270). Among the, urgent tasks, Lenin emphasized the need to spread education among the workers and peasants, to raise the educational level of backward nationalities and to introduce general compulsory school attendance, first at the primary and then at the secondary level. The entire school system was to be re-modelled along communist lines. In practice, Lenin defined communist education as comprising "basic scientific knowledge of born nature and society, the world outlook of scientific materialism, communist morality, physical exercise for good health, close links between study and productive labor." Of all the branches of the system, the elementary schools seemed to Lenin the most important as molders of communist men and women." (Florinsky)
"In 1984, a year before Gorbachev came to power, the Central Committee of the Communist Party approved a new education law titled "The Basic Guidelines for Reform in the General Education and Vocational Schools." The "Guidelines" called for three major changes in the structure of the school system described in chapter 3. First, children would start school at age six, rather than seven, and would be required to complete eleven, rather than ten, years of general education. Primary school would comprise grades one through four; incomplete secondary, grades five through nine; complete secondary, grades ten and eleven. Second, the vocational schools would be consolidated into a single, relatively new institution called a secondary vocational--technical school. The length of study in this school for ninth-grade graduates of the general education school would be three years; for eleventh-grade graduates, one year. Third, in order to receive a secondary school diploma, all students--even those in the general education school--had to acquire a skill proficiency in some common occupation. Reminiscent of the 1964 Khrushchev educational reform, this law mandated for all young people in the Soviet Union a universal eleven-year general education program combined with universal vocational training. The new plans called not only for doubling the amount of time devoted to labor education in the general education school, but doubling as well the enrollment in vocational schools and technicums. " (Long, Long)
How did that group/institution interpret the application of those policies to it?
Perestroika: In 1986, Gorbachev implemented perestroika, or “resturcutring” of Russia, including education. The reforms were based on reversiving unfavorable trends in economics and demographics related to ecuation. Many educators wanted the reforms to take place, as they would make education more scholastic, and add in education in the humanity subjects, in addition to the sciences that had dominated soviet education for years. Schools were to have more choice in how they taught; the avilities of each student were to be focused on. Vocational training was no longer compulsory. Schools were to be more open, diversified, human, decentralized, and even democratized. The people were to be in control of education, not the state.
The higher education was to be reformed through the improvement of quality, through raising standards, and removing the weaker students form the educational programs. New admission criteria were to be implemented. More indivuidulaised curricula were also to be implemented. Education would further emphasize scientific research. Every 5 years, graduates would have to be recertified. Overall, the reofrms were to make better use of resources.
The reforms were supported by much of the educational system in the USSR. Overall, the people of the USSR wanted education to improve, and many wanted humanities to be taught. As a result, the reforms were often welcomed.
Several important Soviet teachers, including Amonashvili supported Gorbachev so much that they additionally called out the problems that soviet education had faced in the past years, and supported Gorbacehv. School would be for the children, and not only for the economy.
However, some felt that Soviet education was ruined; the sudden restructuring would destroy how Russian education had been for 70 years. Some teachers didn’t know how to teach, and what to teach in terms of ethics – continue building the communist man or not.
Overall, the USSR education system knew Gorbachev’s reforms were necessary, and interpreted them as so, and they welcomed them. People enjoyed learning about human rights and other humanity subjects.
Documents:
"As Gorbachev gradually expanded the emphasis of perestroika from exclusive focus on the economy to encompass political and social reform, the inadequacies of the "Basic Guidelines" for the new age of perestroika became increasingly evident to party leaders. In 1987 E. K. Ligachev, at the time second in command to Gorbachev, took the lead in blasting the schools, claiming that "the desire of the teacher to stand over a student, to control his every step is the scourge of our school." In 1988 Shalva Amonashvili, a leading Soviet teacher- innovator during the 1980s, seconded Ligachev's harsh judgment of teachers: "For 60 years all we did was fulfill and execute directives. Our teachers are brilliant executors, the likes of whom we won't find anywhere else in the world. For in their heads sits an inspector who, though he may never come to the teacher's classes, they always bear in mind." (Long, Long)
"While Soviet educators recognized that there was no panacea for overcoming the problems plaguing their schools, they echoed in speeches, articles, and books Gorbachev's firm conviction that "dialogue rather than monologue" was the "essential element in a truly creative process of education and upbringing of young people." This basic idea with all its many ramifications was widely publicized after Iagodin appointed Dneprov in 1988 to organize like-minded reformers into a cohesive, working group titled VNIK-shkola (Temporary Scientific Research Collective on the Schools), a group whose principles were summarized and promulgated, primarily by Dneprov, in a series of position papers published by the editor of the Teacher Gazette (Uchitel'skaia gazeta), Vladimir F. Matveev. In short order, the VNIK-shkola group blossomed into the vanguard of a radical reform movement called the "pedagogy of cooperation," consisting of reformers in the state educational bureaucracy and of prominent teacher-innovators such as Amonashvili, Volkov, Ivanov, El'in, Kurkin, Lytsenkova, Nikitina, Nikitin, Shatalov, and Shchetinin. The main thrust of the movement was to humanize the teaching-learning process. Supporters of the movement demanded first of all the dismantlement of the old Soviet system-- one, in their judgment, so excessively centralized, authoritarian, bureaucratic, and impersonal that it totally ignored the needs and interests of students, teachers, parents, and the community at large. The second order of business was to replace this system with a Lincolnesque system "of the people, by the people, for the people." In short, control of education should be returned to the people." (Long, Long)
How did the Soviet state apply those policies to that group/institution, and what were the effects?
Gorbachev laid out his reforms for education with perestroika. The reforms were in part left to the teachers – as the reforms called for more innovative teaching and more individualized teaching. However, it also fell to Gennadii Iagodin and Eduard Dneprov, leaders in the soviet education system to ensure the reforms were carried out. Iagodin became the USSR State Committee for Public Education minister in 1989. Groups such as “pedagogy for cooperation” formed; they supported Gorbachev’s reforms.
Several organizations formed that helped to spread reforming ideas. The group known as, VNIK-shkola (Temporary Scientific Research Collective on the Schools), had their ideas published in the Teacher's Gazzette; they were a radical reform group. They called for the dismantling of the Soviet education system.
The reforms were slow; after teaching one way for 70 years, reform can be difficult. However, some teachers carried out radical reforms, and the state could do little to stop them, as it was not focused on education. After 1988, the USSR focused on reforms concerning economics, and less on implementing the educational reforms. However, reforms carried out by the teachers brought change. Education became for the people and by the people. The old education system was dismantled.
Documents:
"The February 1988 party plenum painted with broad strokes the general outline of the path that schools were to follow under Gorbachev and, with some notable exceptions, to a considerable extent under Yeltsin as well. Schools were to reflect trends in society at large--trends that were sparked and nurtured by Gorbachev himself and solidified by Yeltsin. The Soviet/Russian school under Gorbachev and Yeltsin was, in tandem with society, to become more open, more humane, more diversified, more decentralized, and more democratized. It was left to a number of outstanding "teacher-innovators" and two dynamic state educational leaders to take a small brush and fill in the details of the emerging new portrait of the Soviet/Russian school. The two state educational leaders were Gennadii Iagodin and Eduard Dneprov. Iagodin was the minister of the USSR State Committee for Public Education, a committee formed on 8 March 1989." (Long, Long)
"there can be no doubt that Gorbachev very much wanted his fellow citizens to think more independently, creatively, and critically. Such people were essential if the socioeconomic life of the country were to improve. Gorbachev insisted that everybody "must learn the habit of criticism, the habit of comradely polemic." Iagodin agreed. "We must learn," he said, "to listen to others, to understand opposing views. This is the task of education." It was not and is not today an easy task.
Teaching children to think for themselves is difficult to do in any country, but in the Soviet Union it was doubly difficult because a long tradition--extending back to the early tsars--of ingrained anti-intellectualism had to be combated. Prior to Gorbachev's ascension to power, the most fundamental objective of the school's upbringing program was to teach children not to think for themselves, but to acquiesce in letting the state do this job for them. In school the child was to learn that there was only one correct answer for every question of importance to the state: socialism is noble, capitalism is wicked; atheism is good, religion is bad. To eliminate any doubt in the minds of students about what the conclusion should be, Soviet teachers were instructed to word their questions so that the question itself prompted the desired response: "The church claims that it always stood for the defense of the interests of its country and people. Prove that this is not so.'...
A Soviet newspaper editor summed up bluntly the challenge facing educators under Gorbachev in promoting independent thinking among students and teachers alike: "When you have been told all your life you are a pig, you don't suddenly start thinking for yourself just because somebody orders you to do so."' (Long, Long)
What was the significance of Gorbachev’s reforms as it pertained to that group/institution?
Education would be returned to the people; it would be less state run. The USSR educational system had been run by the state for decades, and education had not been based on individuals, but on the student body overall. With the reforms, education would be individualized; it would be focused on each student. The students would be taught to think for themselves; free thought would come to Russia. There would no longer be one right answer. Teachers would no longer have to teach a set curriculum, but would have choice in what they taught and how they taught.
The school system that had rigidly followed Marxist-Leninist policy no longer had to. The syllabuses for classes would change, along with textbooks. The Humanities, and even religion, could be taught. Children were also to learn to think for themselves; ideas in opposition to communism could be taught. There was democratization in it, and openness, as called for in other parts of soviet soviety through Gorbachev’s Glasnost and democratizatsiya.
documents:
"The old rigidities of Marxism-Leninism are no longer official doctrine, and the individual is free to search for meaning in capitalism, nationalism, consumerism and a variety of other "isms". In ideals, as in goods, the free market reigns. While this is exhilarating, it is also profoundly confusing for many people. This feeling of confusion is felt especially acutely in the educational system, which is experiencing many difficulties in making the transition to the post-communist era. It has, for example, taken several years to replace the old ideology-laden textbooks with new ones, approved by a panel of Russian scholars. Syllabuses have changed accordingly and now feature such subjects as civil rights, environmental studies and basic market economics. In addition, students are now encouraged to be generally more inquisitive and questioning in their approach to learning. " (Nikandrov)
Bibliography:
Evans, Alfred B.. "Recent Assessments of Social Organizations in Russia." Demokratizatsiya 10.3 (2002): 322. QuestiaSchool. Web. 2 Mar. 2014.
Evered, Lisa J., and Sofya Nayer. "Novosibirsk's school for the gifted ‐ changing emphases in the new Russia." Roeper Review 23.1 (2000): 22-24. QuestiaSchool. Web. 1 Mar. 2014.
Florinsky, Michael. "EDUCATION. Kievan and Muscovite Russia." McGraw-Hill Encyclopedia of Russia and the Soviet Union. 1st ed. 1961. QuestiaSchool. Web. 2 Mar. 2014.
Nikandrov, Nikolai D.. "Russian education after perestroika: The search for new values." International Review of Education 41.1-2 (1995): 47-57. JSTOR. Web. 2 Mar. 2014.
Reuters. "SOVIET REVAMPING SCHOOL SYSTEM." The New York Times 5 Jan. 1984: n. pag. The New York Times. Web. 2 Mar. 2014.
Tarr, Zoltan, and Anthony Jones. "Education and Society in the New Russia.." Contemporary Sociology 25.4 (1996): 527. JSTOR. Web. 2 Mar. 2014.
"USSR Education, Industry, Science, Welfare." I Collect Soviet Books. N.p., 8 Aug. 2010. Web. 3 Mar. 2014. <http://sovietbooks.wordpress.com/2010/08/08/ussr-education-industry-science-welfare/>.
Waller, Michael, and Martin Mccauley. "The Soviet Union after Brezhnev.." International Affairs (Royal Institute of International Affairs 1944-) 60.3 (1984): 501. QuestiaSchool. Web. 2 Mar. 2014.